Bob's friends are making an effort to put the proper spin on his life as an artist and his contributions to the town as a philosopher and intellectual. I appreciate that. I think it's a good thing. But the tribute-makers seem to want to avoid the one thing that most people remember best about Bob. And that is the fact that Bob Wood walked around Kent, Ohio for decades telling people to fuck off.

I first encountered Bob when I was a freshman at Kent State University. I was sitting in one of the big lecture halls one night to see a movie. It was some sort of indie artsy film. Maybe Eraserhead or something along those lines. I don't remember the movie at all, though. What I remember is Fuck You Bob.

I was there with Mick Hurray, the drummer of Zero Defex. Bob was directly in front of us. And he kept giving us the finger. He never turned around. He never said anything. He just flipped us the bird over and over. And he was doing it in a really weird way. He kept turning his hands at different angles (he was giving it to us with both hands) so as to make certain we got his message.

We thought this was hilarious. So we gave him the finger back. I'm not sure if he saw this, though. Like I said, he never turned around. We weren't angry or offended at all. It was much too weird for that.

Throughout my time as a student at Kent State I saw Fuck You Bob around town. He had a load of bizarre behaviors. For example, I once saw him walking down the middle of a busy street. Every time a car would come by, he'd jump up on the sidewalk and wait for it to pass. Then he'd get back into the road and continue walking.

Several years after this I moved back to Kent after living in Chicago for a while. I was walking down Franklin Avenue from downtown toward the Kent Zendo, where I lived. I saw Fuck You Bob coming my way. I wondered what he was going to do. He didn't say anything as he passed me, didn't even give me the finger. And I found myself being a little offended at this. He said "fuck you" to everyone else in town. He'd even said "fuck you" to me on more than one occasion. Was he snubbing me now? What did I do to him?

But a couple seconds after he passed I heard him say, "Suck my dick." And you know what? I felt good. I'm not even joking. I still remember how nice I felt to have been told by Fuck You Bob to suck his dick. If he hadn't said anything to me that day I'd probably still feel I'd been slighted.

I never encountered Fuck You Bob again after that day. But I remember being in Japan and hearing from friends back home that Bob had gotten better. He was getting his art exhibited around town. He was studying for his Master's degree. And shockingly, he wasn't saying "fuck you" quite as often anymore. Though I was relieved to hear that he still did it sometimes.

Bob had a lot of what most people think of as "mental diseases." A lot of people said he had Tourette's Syndrome. But I never heard of anyone having officially made that diagnosis. Still, he was an odd character.

I always wondered if his habit of telling people to fuck off ever got him in real trouble. Kent State University is not one of those schools that attract the best and the brightest this nation has to offer. Heck, I even went there! One of these days I'll tell you about my first roommate. God that guy was as dumb as a box of putty. If Fuck You Bob was flipping the bird to guys like that, especially when they were drunk, which they always were, he was surely getting the crud beat out of him on a regular basis. I hope he was at least targeting wimps like me who weren't likely to get very mad at him.

The concept of mental disease is an interesting one. We know enough about the proper functioning of the kidneys or the bladder or the spleen to be able to diagnose when they're working incorrectly. But when it comes to the brain, things get a bit murkier.

Take someone like Bob. In many ways it would be easy to dismiss him as crazy. But from what I can tell and from what I've heard he lived pretty much the life he wanted to live. He was by all accounts a very intelligent and even kind person. He probably had no desire at all to fit in with regular society. And he didn't. I admire him for finding a way to live his life on his own terms.

He was also, from what I've heard, kind of a pain in the ass to people who knew him. I don't know the details. But I can guess. I mean, for gosh sakes he was saying "fuck you" to everybody in town all the time. That alone is hard to deal with.

One of the things Zen has helped me with is my own tendency to be a sort of Fuck You Bob type character. My difficulties in dealing with society are not as deep seated as his were. But I too have some serious problems reconciling what I know to be true with the bullshit most people seem to believe. I could have easily gone in a direction that would have ended me up in much the same shape as Bob. The Zen thing helped me be able to laugh at the collective illusions society shares and yet still play the game well enough to get by.

This is why I get so annoyed when some people try to turn Zen into what most religions these days have become, a way to placate people so they're numb enough to function as cogs in the social machine. It's not about that.

To me it's about finding your inner Fuck You Bob and making peace with that. But without killing it off or boxing it up either. That's also important.

I'll miss Fuck You Bob. I wish I could've met him just once and sat down and told him how much it meant to me when he told me to suck his dick. I really wonder what he'd have said. Maybe he'd have told me to fuck off.

"This is why I get so annoyed when some people try to turn Zen into what most religions these days have become, a way to placate people so they're numb enough to function as cogs in the social machine. It's not about that."

After a couple of years of practice, which I came to later in life, I think it's also not a way to placate people to function as cogs in the Zen machine, either. Like so many women I've known who were taught to please people, I find that shedding that knee-jerk pleasing response and acting in a more truthful way, as in true nature, is choice that shows up right in my face often. I think people pleasers in active Zen centers need to learn to say "no" as much as "yes".

Crap, Fuck You Bob sounds like Flint, a fellow I met at Food Not Bombs. Flint's line was "All you punk ass bitches can eat shit and die...*ptew*" People like these have some deep wisdom. Without Flint, I don't think I could have clearly seen how I am a punk ass bitch.

this fuck you Bob is so similar to now famous Czech photographer Miroslav Tichy, who had a very similar lifestyle and philosophy and was absolutely annoyed when he got famous and people came to his house to ask him for now very special and expensive photographs he dropped around carelessly his house

Brad wrote: This is why I get so annoyed when some people try to turn Zen into what most religions these days have become, a way to placate people so they're numb enough to function as cogs in the social machine. It's not about that.

Nothing wrong with playing a cog in the social machine, as long as you're really playing. Doesn't require numbness if you have the right attitude. I think for the majority of religious people, religion doesn't provide numbness. If it did, it wouldn't be so popular.

Religion provides structure. It provides rules, and for many, a sense of identity and positive self-esteem as long as they're following the rules. Like, for example, Mormons wearing garments and not masturbating, or Buddhists not drinking or eating meat.

"Everyone was really sad last night at the Grammies, just one day after Whitney Houston died, because she was such a special talent and impossible to replace. So to make everyone feel better, Jennifer Hudson sang Whitney’s big hit, "I Will Always Love You".

"That of course is a song that Dolly Parton wrote in 1973, and Hudson sang it every bit as good as she did, so it turns out Whitney is not that special and can be replaced on about 24 hours notice. Whew, what a relief!"

Hi again. I just remembered one question. I am reading the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying and there was something quite interesting about consciousness even while dreaming.

(I am not sure if I use the correct expressions as you might have noticed I am not a native English speaker :) )

I remember that someone wrote about this in the comments couple of weeks ago, but I am not sure who it was.

Is there anyone here who has experienced something like this? I had only ends of dreams or nightmares when before they were ending I was "calming down" myself telling in the dream,that it is only a dream and I will wake up soon.

In this book they also write that people`s dreams and nightmares tell a lot about how the state of their mind is going to be in the bardo period after death. Does anyone know what does this mean? It is quite hard to imagine how the dreams are related to the state of the mind after death.

I know,that it is only one book and also that Tibetan Buddhism is not Zen,but I thought to post this question here in case anyone has read the book or has any comment on this issue.

When my old barber died a decade ago, 250 turned out. The kewl thing about Richie (now under new management) is that you never got a really good haircut. But Richie wasn't playing with a full deck and the haircut that you got represented his best effort. Also, the longer you sat in the chair and BSed with him, the shorter you hare became.

"Not only in the Zen centers,but anywhere else it would help a lot if people would learn to say no, be a bit more skeptical and would not obey rules and hierarchical systems so much."

Many times, people think of Zen as being simple, direct, iconoclastic, anti-authoritarian and unattached. It supposedly helps produce people who possess a fundamental insight into life; people who are not fooled by appearances or ideas. But the reality is that almost everything about Western Zen's presentation, practice, and rituals is aimed at producing people who give up their good sense with the promise of some sort of imaginary greater gain in the future. Now, bear in mind that this is obviously a general statement and it demands further qualification, but it serves to introduce some of the problems that need and ought to be addressed. This is not a new idea nor is it unique to Chan/Zen. David Hume said in his Of the First principles of Government (1758) that "Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few, and the implicit submission with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers."

The reason for this surrender, certainly in the case of Western Zen, is structural and self-perpetuating.

If we were mates and we could sit down and have a chat I would say "Brad, I respect your honesty, candour, and your desire to seek a path, but I have issues with you". My introduction to you was through your first book "Hardcore Zen" and I thought wow, not Alan Watts! If only your subsequent books or this web site had progressed, sadly you seem to be meandering every way but forward, content to continually point out the failings of other teachers or yourself or life itself. That life isn't easy is where most of us start from, pointing towards failings in others or yourself is surely seeing the finger and not the moon?So, if we were mates and sitting down for a chat I would say "Brad, the journey of....(old cliché)but don't just step, take a leap!

Anonymous, no way have I, nor did I seek to "Humiliate" Brad. I foolishly made some comments on this blog that you have shown to be unwise if this is the way you interpret them.

As I said, I spoke out of respect and MY hope is, based on MY interpretation, is that he moves on from what I would describe as a "stalemate" position to moving forward and creating rather than commenting.

Viewfinder has a point, perhaps, but is either too new, or not observant enough to have noticed Brad's various false starts, for example, trying to move forward with a description of zen as "art" that went nowhere; one can only hope that the most recent, about zen and belief in god, will fizzle out as well. What he does best is just what he does, not some hybrid breakout bullshit. He's not stale, he's stable, he's the product of dedicated practice. That he waxes and wanes in his humanity, wearing his heart on his sleeve, showing his hand and expressing opinions on whatever the fuck he wants, is a strength, not a weakness.

Kent State University is a public institution that was founded in 1910. It has a total undergraduate enrollment of 21,178, its setting is suburban, and the campus size is 824 acres. It utilizes a semester-based academic calendar. Kent State University's ranking in the 2012 edition of Best Colleges in National Universities, 194. Its in-state tuition and fees are $9,346 (2011-12); out-of-state tuition and fees are $17,306 (2011-12).

on the other hand...

California State University--Chico is a public institution that was founded in 1887. It has a total undergraduate enrollment of 14,758, its setting is rural, and the campus size is 119 acres. It utilizes a semester-based academic calendar. California State University--Chico's ranking in the 2012 edition of Best Colleges in Regional Universities (West), 33*. Its in-state tuition and fees are $6,964 (2011-12); out-of-state tuition and fees are $18,124 (2011-12).

* ranked 33 on a different scale - regional for Chico v. national for Kent.

"I just want to say: Never lose faith in real rock and roll music, you know what I mean? Never lose faith in that," Dave Grohl said. "You might have to look a little harder, but it's always going to be there."

As as former KSU student myself in the late 80s, I too remember Fuck You Bob. He sat near me once during a classical concert I attended on campus and I finally had to move because he smelled so strongly of urine.

I'm glad he finally calmed down some and was able to exhibit his work. I had no idea he had any artistic talent but I did see him alot in the Art Building, where I worked and majored in Art History.

Maybe his telling me repeatedly to suck his dick wouldn't have offended me quite so much if he had smelled like he actually washed it once in a while. Maybe I'm just shallow :-(

John Baker, you are correct that Dogen borrowed most of it from a Chinese manual and rewrote it 42 times or whatever- Bielefeldt's a genius for "Dogen's Meditations Manuals". Have you read "Zen Letters of Yuanwu" by Cleary, or the one on Foyan ("Waking Up in the Present")? Yes, importing a Japanese religion whole cloth is not real, in my opinion.

Someone is taking Brad to task for not striking out in a new direction, someone else is writing about dreams, I would like to submit my own Waking Up and Falling Asleep- just finished revising it, and last night added something I think is critical to Translations of Motion in the Lotus- where the extension of the hips by the obturators comes in (see "Anatomy of Movement" by Calais-Germain, for the hammocking of the hips by the obturators).

Looking at FY Bob's artwork, what one can see in the video -is there a link to any more? Did he have a show(s) on campus or elsewhere? it is clear that at a certain point in time in the 1980's he would've figured into the "Outsider Artist" category, and would have possibly done quite well had there been someone around to exploit this. Unless by then he had a college degree. I could've also made a small fortune this way, having been groomed by a gallery in Chicago as an "Outsider artist" until my credibility as an "innocent" was shattered when they discovered I had a bachelor's degree. I was unceremoniously dropped like the proverbial hot potato.

Yes, I kind of understand what you mean with this "you are still in a dream" thing and so.

Although as an ordinary human being I can make a clear distinction of dreaming and being awake, even if I am aware during my dream, that it is only a dream. And even if I know while being awake that many things are only illusions.

My question was more related to that that in that book the author wrote that it kind of differs individually in what state our mind is when we are dreaming as it differs also when we are "awake" based on the practice, meditation, realizations etc. And somehow he wrote that this individual state of the mind reflects also after our death. Kind of understand that it is always the same mind, but then I do not see the point why he had to make the distinction between the state of the mind while dreaming (when sleeping), being awake and after dying.

Not everyone can have a life as fulfilling or rich as yours mysterion. We all wish we had so much time to waste endlessly searching the internet for that perfect silly picture or fascinating YouTube link. It is amazing what you have be able to find on the web. I think it's a gift. You are a product of higher education there's no doubt about that.

Tsangnyön [author of the Biography of Milarepa] abandoned his monastic costume and engaged in outrageous behaviour, such as offering people shit to eat and throwing urine over them, which surprisingly inspired a devotional response amongst the populace.

Believing that normal behaviour would limit his ability to benefit beings, he covered himself in human ash, adorned himself with human grease and blood; severed fingers and toes from corpses and made them into a garland that he wound into his hair. He extracted intestine from corpses and made them into necklaces, armlets and anklets. Later in life he wore sartorially more upbeat carved, human-bone jewellery that were offered to him by devotees, but at this time, naked apart from these dead body parts, he would come into town, sing, dance, laugh and cry. With his penis erect, he chased women. Sometimes he bound his penis so that only his pubic hair was visible and chased men, shouting, ‘Fuck me!’ He also drank urine, ate faeces, and threw them at people, who, unsurprisingly, were usually terrified by him.

The biggest detractors of what I have to say here have not studied the Buddhist canon sufficiently to know that all of what I write has a scriptural basis. Their source of information is other than the Buddhist canon. Perhaps they are content with reading what a pop Buddhist author, like a Brad Warner or a Stephen Batchelor, has to say about what the Buddha taught. Frankly, these interpretations of Buddhism are usually lacking in depth and off-base.

There are really two views of Buddhism that are going on. There is the view of this derivative pop Buddhism and there there is the view of Buddhism from the actual, real canon (both the Nikayas/Agamas and Mahayana canon). In most cases, the two are not even close.

Anonymous John Baker said...Mysterion,"There are really two [or more] views of Buddhism that are going on..."

A point very well made.

Brad is talking about Dogen (and Shōbōgenzō), not the Pali Tripitaka. Brad is first to admit that he is no 'hardcore' upstream Buddhist scholar. He is heir to DSI and, as such, is charged with keeping the reading of Shōbōgenzō [a PDF] alive. He is doing quite well at his assigned task.

Hisako Feb 12to me:As I was reading Wikipedia info about Waseda, I found the name I often heard from Josen, my mother, and Tomako:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaichi_Aizu

Yaichi Aizu left many unpublished translations of archaic Japanese literature - many now lost. Too bad. He was 'the pro from dover' when it came to 'ancient Japanese' language, writing, and literature.

Anyway, I would never claim to be the smartest man in the room. THAT is up to Newt Gingrich.

John Baker, man, what are you up to! I have read the Pali Suttas, Nikayas one through four (five is a later composition). Where do you think I get this gibberish!

Thanks Mysterion, for the link to the Sri Lanka project, I'll be interested to see how they translate the chapter on "intent concentration on in-breathing and out-breathing" in Sanyutta Nikaya when they get there.

As near as I can tell, and speaking strictly to myself, here's the deal: it's an exercise in writing, for Brad, for Mysterion, for john e mumbles, for Khru, for gniz, for brokenyogi, for anon#108, and apologies to those I've left out (like anonymous, where does Brad get these reality checkers extraordinaire), and if you can keep a sense of humor which I seldom do you get extra points. If we can throw enough stones in it, we have soup. Brad is a writer, who happens to have credentials as a zazen instructor. So to speak. If you say you want a revolution, you'd best be prepared to eat shit, put body parts in your hair, and chase guys down the street; if you discriminate and pontificate, anonymous will have your ass, and you'd best know you are talking to yourself and there's no one else except some stones in an electronic kettle so let's get positive and substantive and rock! F*#*!@k us, as the Tibetan saint exclaimed.

I could've also made a small fortune this way, having been groomed by a gallery in Chicago as an "Outsider artist" until my credibility as an "innocent" was shattered when they discovered I had a bachelor's degree. I was unceremoniously dropped like the proverbial hot potato.

Fuckin awesome - thanks. As someone beginning to practice Zen - this totally made even more sense to me. I may not be into punk rock or the like - but agree whole heartedly of the bullshit of society - and I myself have to play along to make do, support my family, etc. Meanwhile - I question the shit out of everything, laugh at the "go along with the majority", and try to keep my integrity all along the way. Fuckin A - and thanks again.

I just wanted to write to say thank you for this post, especially this part:

One of the things Zen has helped me with is my own tendency to be a sort of Fuck You Bob type character. My difficulties in dealing with society are not as deep seated as his were. But I too have some serious problems reconciling what I know to be true with the bullshit most people seem to believe. I could have easily gone in a direction that would have ended me up in much the same shape as Bob. The Zen thing helped me be able to laugh at the collective illusions society shares and yet still play the game well enough to get by.

This is why I get so annoyed when some people try to turn Zen into what most religions these days have become, a way to placate people so they're numb enough to function as cogs in the social machine. It's not about that.

To me it's about finding your inner Fuck You Bob and making peace with that. But without killing it off or boxing it up either. That's also important.

This well summarizes where my own thinking has taken me of late. I have this visceral negative reaction to what I think of as the "three kids and a golden retriever syndrome" as it filters into Zen. So many pop Buddhist figures are mouthpieces for the status quo. That's fine for those folks who comfortably fit in to the status quo. But for those of us who don't, there can be this enormous pressure to change to accommodate it. It's irritating when the very thing that brings me to Zen - the lack of faith in prevailing cultural myths about what is important - is expressed from within the Zen community as if it were some universal truth.

Fuck You Bob sounds awesome. I appreciate people like Fuck You Bob and the mirror they hold up to society: "this is what you won't accept." It makes me think of another Bob - the BOB from Twin Peaks. In Twin Peaks and elsewhere, David Lynch explores the splitting and duality we create in refusing to face or acknowledge certain things. To me, this is the heart of the spiritual journey - facing all of these things and making peace with them. Developing fearlessness - the fearlessness to go to hell if you have to because you have made peace with the hellish aspects of yourself, let yourself feel and explore and come to understand them.

I don't understand how anyone can undertake a spiritual path and not face the equivalent of Twin Peaks' 'Red Room,' our doppelgangers and repressed feelings and memories... Where our psyches throw up the things most tuned to inspire fear in our inner world of symbols. Even the traditional story of the Buddha references this in his sitting at the foot of the Bodhi tree and facing down the armies of Mara. And yet... So few in Buddhism talk about this experience or aspect of the path. Which makes me question how deep most people actually go.

This is why I was so inspired by 'Zen Wrapped In Karma' but so quickly shut down when you resumed blogging from a voice of 'Rightism' (as in, "my way is pure and right and correct"). You had the guts to chronicle your own 'Red Room' experience publicly but then went back to that comfortable voice of Moral Authority. It seems most of us drawn to this path have that tendency. We want to get on our pulpits and preach to others. I've been guilty of it and it seems most folks on Buddhist forums jockey for the opportunity to offer someone else instruction.

But to me that is the total expression of ignorance. It's our comfortable illusions of certainty, moral purity, perfection, etc., that arise from ignorance, not our honest expression of confusion, pain, or demonic intercourse. But we treat it like the opposite is true in the funhouse mirror of society. Thank God for people like Fuck You Bob. At this point I think I'd rather have someone like that as my guru than these squeaky clean cardboardmen that have been nominated as Official Buddhist Talking Heads by the New Age cuddle toy factory.

tattoozen, I will not apologize for my thoughts and feelings, as wrong or right, time-wasting or not, as they may actually be. To quote Greg Dulli, "God knows I got my reasons, for every motherfucking thing I say." Or, as Fuck You Bob would say... well, you know.

I took my leave of Treeleaf, but bear no ill will toward it or Jundo as I once did. I believe folks there are sincere and that the teachings and practice offered there do good for people. It's just not for me. Let's just say there is a mutual lack of inspiration- our interior decorating preferences are different. I sit with a local sangha now and have bonded with them. I am still good friends with Chet. Who is as Chet-like as ever.

thanks, anon#108. Hope you like "waking up and falling asleep"- I'm slowly but surely feeling my way along, and although it seems like two, I rely on one thing at a time.

@Stephanie,I like this: "It seems most of us drawn to this path have that tendency. We want to get on our pulpits and preach to others. I've been guilty of it and it seems most folks on Buddhist forums jockey for the opportunity to offer someone else instruction."

There's also the opportunity to teach ourselves.

I think Bob was probably getting SSI for it. I go to visit my sweetheart's sister with my sweetheart sometimes, and in the mental rehab lockdown are a number of individuals whose presence is profound and not a little scarey to me. I know they have a challenge, I know it's an opportunity for me, and the amygdala is working overtime as I do nothing. I have volunteered to play guitar and sing there twice, and I hope to again; a better audience I could never hope to find.

thanks for the links, I read both articles. The dream meditation is more familiar to me from my own experience than the sleeping meditation.

I am not forcing these things too much though, because I do not have anyone who could supervise my own limitations regarding these things. It might sound very profane, but I do not want to overestimate my own capabilities and starting to have some mental disorders because I started to get involved in something which is too much for me at this point.

But the articles gave the answer for my questions about the book, so thanks a lot for showing them.

I think we all at some points in our lives have pivotal people and events.

Some times these are of the shocking kind, making us rethink certain assumptions.

For myself Daniel Coffeen made me rethink so much, I know I've posted some links to his stuff before but some one might get something out of them.

podcasts:

Periodic apocalypse: Extermination of the Human Host ??How Parasitic Capitalism Consumes, Confines and Controls. July 31, 2009. Featuring Daniel Coffeen, PhD. DJ Prefect brings her certified scientism to a discussion of an emergent socioeconomic system that trivializes art, literature, health, and leisure even while obesity and chronic diseases rise and science literacy reaches all time lows. How did we get here and where are we going? Jane, get us off this crazy thing!

Give me a heads up when you are headed out this way and I'll meet you at SFZC again. Tassajara has a no pet (pee& poop) policy so Shiro and I don't go, even though I religiously pick up after him. Picking up his doggie droppings is my religion...

SFZC (a.k.a. West Mission, Zen Center*) enjoys your visits and so do I.

cheers,Chas

*300 Page St., San FranciscoThis is one of Julia Morgan's most gracious small institutional buildings, originally designed as the Emanuel Sisterhood Residence.

Julia Morgan is a very famous architect. She was "architect to the onepercenters."

I'd be quite glad to live in just an annex of England... at the moment I seem to be living in the remains of a annex of Holy Mother Rome, Britain, he USof A, and some big ill-defined malevolent Euro Bank.

Henry Darger was an amazing guy. I was able to see some of his work in a traveling exhibition of Outsider Art a few years ago. Some of his pieces were huge. Adolf Wolfi had a number of paintings in the show also. All very cool.

Im a newbie as far as twitter is concerned and Buddhism, meditation and all but about 6 weeks ago I also decided to follow Thich Naht Hanh. Anyway and after a few tweets from both him and some others I decided very early on it was a whole load of crock…im shocked that someone like yourself also had the same views. Not that the man himself is full of crock but what is being passed as his views is a whole load o crock! Maybe the students or whoever they are feel obliged to post something…I sometimes feel like I have to speak at meetings in my work but sometimes I say things that are just what people want to hear rather than what needs to be said if that makes sense…sometimes if you have nothing to add of any value don’t add anything…silence is just as, if not more powerful than a whole load o crock…that sunrise thing…I read that post and I was on the train that morning trying to read my book but the sun was blinding me so much I actually moved to another seat just so I could continue with my reading. Everyone loves a beautiful sunrise but normally its when there is sporadic cloud cover and the sun is just coming up and it taints the clouds red, then orange then white and when the sun finally comes over the horizon its time to look away as everyone knows they cannot look the sun direct on. I also feel its very sad that some people have taken your comments about Hitler and the Charles guy way too far…im not claiming to know much but unfortunately no matter what anyone thinks…hitler was me and im Charles whats his face…one thing I do get is that im part of the whole shebang whether I like that idea or not, all branches on the tree as it were…I know I have a lot to learn, ive only been studying it a few years and I don’t like agreeing with people…in fact its my job to find flaws in peoples thinking but I somehow completely feel the same way you did about Thich Naht Hanh comments that morning…never mind im sure ill find something I can disagree with at some point…but thought i should share my comments as I feel the same way you do. Maybe there are others out there that should do my job as they are quite good at disagreeing just for the sake of saying something when nothing really needs to be said.

I used to hang out with Bob at Brady's Coffee Shop when my daughter was little. He was very intelligent. I remember going to an art show to see some of his paintings. One time at Brady's he was on one of his suck my dick tangents and a young college student looked up at him and said..."Bob, if you want me to suck your dick you are going to have to ask nicer." He burst out laughing. Rest Well Bob <3

OMG! I was just (who knows why) thinking about Fuck You Bob and decided to google it and this came up. He was such a legend of KSU. I was there from 1997 - 2001 and first encountered him in the computer lab. He was hacking hawkers in his throat and making these god-awful noises. He wore rags, had that scraggly long beard and yes, an odor. He was spouting offensive expletives at the same time. The odd thing was that when I looked around incredulously for others' reactions (lab was full), NO ONE was reacting. It was as if they were used to it. What was this strange culture? I told my brother (another KSU'er) when I got home and he said "oh, well that's Fuck You Bob. Everyone knows him. Just say 'Hey Bob! Fuck you!'"

This didn't quite sink in until over the semesters I would watch him lumber around the campus with People would seeing him and cheerfully shouting "Hey Bob! Fuck You!" He would always respond in kind. I can see why someone might feel slighted if he didn't. It was a pleasant exchange in Bob's world and we were all living in it. He was our mascot; a fixture on campus. I was so sorry to hear that he had passed, but very pleased to see that he is commemorated here. I do think the obit did him a disservice by not citing his nickname or his famous phrase which bonded him with so many and transcended race, class, societal norms and decades. I'll miss you, Bob, but rest assured you'll be remembered long after the rest of us are gone. Rest in peace my friend and Hey Bob! Fuck You!

I used to hang around the Art Buildings when my wife was a grad student at KSU. Social life was always more interesting than at Akron U where I was attending. So, Bob Wood (aka FU Bob) and I often ended up indulging in the free food laid out during the art shows and portfolio reviews.

Many people avoided Bob because they didn't know how to cope with his cursing. However, I used to chat with him about art and politics. It was, to säg the least, challenging to Wade through the expletives while he uttered his thoughts but I often sought his opinions which entailed deep political insights into the world around us.

Laugh if you will, but the guy was brilliant. You could discuss political machinations throughout the millennia without the discoloration of contemporary biases.

Granted, it took much discipline to stay focused on his expressed thoughts and tune out the graphic expletives of fornication, but he always left me with life-changing deep thoughts.

Because of his syndrome, he was constantly getting into trouble, obviously. I'm proud to say that my uncle represented him pro Bono and made it so that Bob could not be arrested within Kent City Limits! Way to go Uncle Mike!